Opera is now free

Brian Ambrozy 20 Sep, 2005 at 11:03am ET Article published in Tech

Today Opera has announced that the ad-free version of their browser software is now free of charge. While premium support still costs, you can get their base product for no charge.

Source: Opera.com

Comments

20 Sep 2005 ~ 12:15pm muddocktor Yep, I was just coming to submit this to the news section. I messed with Opera a while ago but didn't like the damn ad banner. I believe I will give it a try again now.
20 Sep 2005 ~ 1:22pm Enverex You know... if I had paid, I would probably be pretty pissed right now... (you get support... yay... who here would ever use it?).
20 Sep 2005 ~ 1:51pm FormFactor I just dont understand why anyone would pay for a browser in the first place when there are so many free browsers.

What's so special about it that they were selling it in the first place?
20 Sep 2005 ~ 6:11pm airbornflght dont know...i think ill check it out..but i always end up going back to ie since thats what all pages are designed for.
20 Sep 2005 ~ 8:23pm DoctorGeo2008 What's different/better than Firefox?
20 Sep 2005 ~ 9:45pm RWB

airbornflght wrote:

dont know...i think ill check it out..but i always end up going back to ie since thats what all pages are designed for.

I've actually been to a few sites that would only work properly in Mozilla, they worked, but looks odd and didn't show the whole page and stuff like that.

errr... trying hard.... to not...... begin............ a flame war about browsers! :o
20 Sep 2005 ~ 9:46pm muddocktor It's for sure quicker than IE, don't know how it compares to Firefox. I d/l'ed it this afternoon and I guess I'll install it and see.
20 Sep 2005 ~ 9:46pm primesuspect Yeah, if they had been free before firefox was awesome, I would probably be really excited right now. But since firefox is so smooth..... "meh"
20 Sep 2005 ~ 10:48pm RWB Been using Opera for a few months now..... I ocassionaly have to switch to IE for windows updates, and firefox maybe for other things other than making sure a site I build works properly. But it is pretty rare.
20 Sep 2005 ~ 11:31pm entropy

FormFactor wrote:

What's so special about it that they were selling it in the first place?

I ask myself that everytime I use my brother's computer (he uses Opera).

I'm with prime - meh. I can't stand it, but I might give it a good try when I have some time.
20 Sep 2005 ~ 11:40pm Madball I've used Opera for that past couple of years. I've tried Mozilla and Firefox several times, but I'm just comfortable with Opera. I don't think any one browser is the best, it's all personal preference. Opera does have its quirks, it can be a memory hog and has problems with some plugins, but I like it, I'm used to it, and now its free. I'll stick with it at least until the next IE comes out.
20 Sep 2005 ~ 11:40pm TheBaron this non-premium version has ad bookmarks that you can't get rid of
21 Sep 2005 ~ 12:07am entropy

TheBaron wrote:

this non-premium version has ad bookmarks that you can't get rid of

Really? I guess I won't even bother then... wow.
21 Sep 2005 ~ 12:32am TheBaron well I mean... they're just bookmarks, and there are only 4 of them
21 Sep 2005 ~ 9:47pm BLuKnight Well, Opera is faster than IE and FireFox. I had it pull up a 2 meg query from a database (21000 records). IE and FireFox finished loading the page in 2 minutes. Opera had it up in 20 seconds. Also, I've noticed Opera has a smaller footprint than IE and FireFox when it comes to large web docs. However, I really like RoboForm (especially with the link software for my Palm), and they don't have a plugin for Opera. So, I'll stick with FireFox (and IE as needed.)